GameTech: Week 6

We’re making a game! Well, to elaborate, the GT group is going to build a game collaboratively, as well as exploring game design independently. Here are the notes from our very first brainstorming session. They won’t make a heck of a lot of sense if you’re just seeing them here for the first time. I’m posting them more as a reference tool for our participants.

Todd: original sketch from brainstorming session

Todd: revised sprite, walking animation (working draft).

It’s going to be a platform game, à la Super Mario Bros., because that is a familiar and simple enough template that we can get something cool quickly, since we are not ‘reinventing the wheel.’

Main Character

Main character could be a TEENAGE MALE.

If it is a teenage male, he could have a slingshot as a long-range weapon.

Daniel suggests Todd as a name, and two other students support this.

TODD (description):

He’s a teenage boy.

He’s playing video games, and gets teleported into the game world.

He’s strong, but average; a bit of a loner. In the game world, he gets to be cooler than in the real world – is more suave, e.g.

Joseph suggests Digio, and some think that Digio could be cool as a boss or an evil twin – a digital clone of our main character.

Game World + Enemies

What makes a game world interesting and fun?

Colours

Variety

Difficulty

The difficulty could change according to the level; the number of hearts/HP could as well.

Enemies could include monsters.

If there are monsters, they could evolve and/or grow, like in Pokémon.

There could be elemental characters – a water monster, a fire monster, e.g. – and they could have corresponding elemental weaknesses.

There could be combining characters – monsters that take on the features of other monsters.

There could be characters from familiar games.

E.g., a Mario-like guy, maybe as a boss or a NPC: “You’re-a stealing my game-a!”

There are imitations of familiar hardware: the Zii, for example.

Daniel’s pitch:

Daniel pitched the idea of a teenager entering a game world, i.e. entering his favourite video games.

Other level ideas:

A crystal cave world, with crystal stalactites and stalagmites; there could be fire, traces of an alien culture. (Rucel’s idea?)

A space level, with reduced gravity. (Karim’s idea, I believe.)

A fantasy world: the main character wears a cloth tunic; there are puzzles; you have 4-6 hearts. The enemies could be knights, evil pixies with wands that fire. The boss could be a giant, mutant chicken. (That last one is Daniel’s idea.)